Eartha Kitt

Given the choice of spending a day with, say, Madonna or an hour with Eartha Kitt, my decision would have taken all of a nanosecond--that hour I'd spend with one of the world's most uniquely talented women could not possibly be regretted. Her death on Christmas day was nearly as much of a shock as was the fact that she died at the age of 81, an age one doesn't normally associate with a sex symbol.

And what a sex symbol she was. Orson Welles thought she was the most exciting woman in the world. He was not alone in that view.

By the time I'd reached a year old in 1954, you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing "C'est Si bon" or the enormously popular "Santa Baby." Soon, she was showing up on television in tight, sequined gowns and springolators, cooing in a voice that could melt glass.

Her life was a testimony to the human spirit. Born dirt poor in South Carolina, Eartha Kitt could perform in several languages and was the standard bearer for the sultry, sophisticated glamour of the 1950s and 1960s. The only blip in her career happened when, as a White House guest of Lady Bird Johnson, she made some terse remarks about the Viet Nam war causing the First Lady to burst into tears and putting Ms. Kitt's career in a tailspin. Had it not been for her fans in Europe, a great career might have ended.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.

C'est Si Bon.